Whenever I put a timming light on my 454 and point it towards the balancer to see the line, the line is always in a different place. It goes back and forth from 16 degrees back to 8 degrees.(just a example). It does that no matter what cyclinder I hook the light up to. I don't know if that makes any sense its hard to explain.

Is this a new problem? Is the engine running OK otherwise?
Couple of things to check.
1 - Make sure you are powering the timing light with solid 12 volts. I hook directly to the battery.
2 - Make sure you have your magnetic pickup clamped securly around the #1 wire and place as close to the spark plug as possible.
If you are running an ignition box with crappy wires and/or are clamped up at the distributor, you could be getting false triggering. Hope this helps,
Bill

worn bushings in dist?

The distributer is still good.
I put a msd box on it and it helped but not completely. My friend said the timming chain could be bad or loose letting the cam move back and forth.
I will check the wires on the msd box, I didnt think of that.

The MSD box in itself, can make your timing light jump around a bit...

Scott

Do you have the engine RPM at approx. 1500rpm's? I think that's a baseline but hope someone else can clarify this.

Additionally, I had a bad distributor on a crate engine once and it was doing the same thing - I'm assuming you don't have a radical cam profile.

Ricardo

I don't think the timing chain is causing the jumping around. What size cam do you have? A large cam can cause the timing to jump around (because of the higher idle speed needed and the lumpiness of the idle). If you have an automatic try setting the brake and timing it in gear (this is what I do). That will smooth down any variations in speed. It will also lower the engine speed possibly keeping the mechanical advance from activating. Mine comes in at 1100 rpm. I idle out of gear at this rpm (causing the idle/timing to jump around some). In gear, the engine idles relativly smooth (for a lumpy cam) at 900 rpm so the mech adv is inactive.

If you are using a dial back timing light, the MSD will dork it and the readings will be all over the place. MSD says use the plain Jane light and time the motor that way.